Harvor, (Erica) Elisabeth (Arendt Deichmann) 1936-

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HARVOR, (Erica) Elisabeth (Arendt Deichmann) 1936-

(Beth Harvor)

PERSONAL: Born June 26, 1936, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada; daughter of Lauritz Kjeld Deichmann (a potter) and Erica Louise Gregg (a potter; maiden name, Matthiesen); married Stig Harvor (an architect), November 16, 1957 (divorced, 1977); children: Finn, Richard. Education: Studied nursing at Saint John General Hospital, 1954-1956; Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, M.A., 1986.

ADDRESSES: Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Office—c/o Writers Union of Canada, 40 Wellington Street East, Third Floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5E 1C7. Agent—Hilary McMahon, Westwood Creative Artists, 94 Harbord Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1G6. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Novelist, poet, and short story writer. Algonquin College, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, conductor of workshops on women and writing, 1973-76; Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, sessional lecturer, 1986-87, 1995-97, writer-in-residence, 1996-1997; York University, Downsview, Ontario, sessional lecturer in writing program, 1987-93; Ottawa Public Library and Carleton University, writer-inresidence, 1993-94. University of New Brunswick, writer-in-residence, 1994-95, instructor, 1995; Humber School for Writers, instructor, 1996-98, 2000-2003; Saskatoon Public Library, writer-in-residence, 1998-99.

AWARDS, HONORS: First prize, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) New Canadian Writing Series, 1965, and CBC-Ottawa short story competition, 1970; fellow, Fonds F.C.A.C. pour l'aide et le soutien a la recherche, 1985-86; League of Canadian Poets' National Poetry Prize, 1989 and 1991; Malahat Long Poem Prize, 1990; National Magazine Award for poetry, 1991; Confederation Poets' Prize for best poem published in Arc, 1991 and 1992; Gerald Lampert Memorial Award (co-winner), 1992, for Fortress of Chairs; Governor General's Award finalist, 1996, for Let Me Be the One; Pat Lowther Award finalist, 1998, for Long Cold Green Evenings of Spring; Alden Nowlan Award for Excellence in English-Language Literary Arts, 2000; grants from Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, and Woodcock Foundation; fellow, Concordia University.

WRITINGS:

(Under name Beth Harvor) Women and Children (stories), Oberon Press (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), 1973, revised edition published as Our Lady of All the Distances, 1991.

If Only We Could Drive Like This Forever (stories), Penguin Canada (Markham, Ontario, Canada), 1988, revised edition, 2004.

Fortress of Chairs (poems), Signal Editions (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1992.

Let Me Be the One, HarperCollins (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996.

(Editor) The Long Cold Green Evenings of Spring, Signal Editions (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1997.

A Room at the Heart of Things: The Work That Came to Me, Vehicule Press (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1997.

The Long Cold Green Evenings of Spring (poems), Signal Editions (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), 1998.

Excessive Joy Injures the Heart (novel), McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000.

All Times Have Been Modern (novel), Penguin Canada (Markham, Ontario, Canada), 2004.

Work represented in anthologies in Canada, United States and Europe, including Best American Short Stories, Houghton Mifflin, 1971; The Penguin Book of Modern Short Stories, Penguin, 1982; and More Stories by Canadian Women, Oxford University Press, 1987. Contributor of poems, articles, stories, and reviews to magazines and newspapers, including New Yorker, Hudson Review, Prism International, Event, New Quarterly, Fiddlehead, Our Generation against Nuclear War, American Voice, Saturday Night, Malahat Review, New Quarterly, Globe & Mail, Gazette (Montreal), Toronto Star, and Ottawa Citizen.

ADAPTATIONS: One of Harvor's stories, "Summer Mournings," was dramatized on CBC-TV in 1975. Other works have been read on CBC Anthology, CBC's Festival of Fiction, etc.

SIDELIGHTS: In Let Me Be the One Elisabeth Harvor offers eight intimate stories that capture her characters' lives during a rare moment of insight. Many of the characters in the book try to cope with the predicament of being human by entering the territory of the desperate wish. (Let me be the one he loves best. Let me be the one to escape. Let me be the one to make something of my life.) Judith Timson wrote in Maclean's that "Harvor is a brave writer" who "depicts women teetering on the brink of failure, women who cannot inspire confidence even in their own divorce lawyers." Megan Harlan, commenting in New York Times Book Review, called the contents of the book "eight stunning stories about identity and its discontents . . . [that] are given an engaging structure by the wry, mercurial wanderings of the characters' minds." It was chosen one of the ten best books of 1996 by the Toronto Star, the Saint-John Telegraph Journal and after its distribution in the United States, one of the best books of 1997 for the Librarians' Choice Awards. Let Me Be the One was also a finalist (in fiction) for Canada's prestigious Governor General's Award for Fiction.

When she begins to have trouble sleeping, Claire Vornoff, the protagonist of Harvor's 2000 novel, Excessive Joy Injures the Heart, drives out into the country to become a client of Declan Farrell, an acupuncturist and iconoclast in the medical establishment. An education (of sorts) ensues. Calling the book "intricately textured, with surreal juxtapositions," critic Maureen Garvey, writing in Quill and Quire, commented that Claire Vornoff's obsessive intensity is "utterly believable and mesmerizing, and that her anxiously heightened awareness animates a world of sensual immediacy. . . . This is really wonderful writing—polished, well plotted, affecting and unsettling." In this novel, Harvor also includes minute details that challenge her readers' preconceived ideas about love and sorrow. According to a contributor for Publishers Weekly, "In lucidly charting Claire's emotional and erotic attachment, Harvor is reminiscent of a classic novelist of another generation, Christina Stead and, like Stead, she has a masterly grasp of the psychological states of women on the margins of society."